I toss the phone on the passenger seat and pound on the steering wheel three times. I can’t believe I’m parked outside his house, and he just hung up on me.

Sitting here is irrational and so out of character, but after today, I couldn't let the last thing I see be him driving away from me, to be alone, with her.

The one and only other time I'd met Taylah we were watching Drix and Jagger play football for a Youth off the Streets fundraiser, and she didn’t hide how attractive she found him. She’s Emerson’s friend, Dakota was there, and he isn’t my man, so I seethed internally and let the day pass. It’s not like I can’t see how gorgeous he is, he’s perfect, grown up to be everything a woman wants her man to be.

But the bottom line is he isn’t mine, and for the first time in a long time, the reality of that is sitting heavy on my heart. I feel insane, conflicted, hurt, and defeated. I know I’m the reason we’re here. Every fight, every rejection, almost every reason we’re not together can be traced back to me. And for some unknown reason, I’m still here acting like I have a right to dictate how the rest of his life goes.

I step out of the car, slamming the door like it’s my own personal enemy, and head straight for his house. My knuckles rap at the door loudly. Only seconds have passed and I’m hammering at it again, even harder.

“Who is it?” he asks, his voice close, and the consequence of my decision on the cusp of evolving.

“Drix. It’s me.” The door swings open with more force than necessary, and the sight of him in front of me has every single one of my senses on full alert. Even with his frustration and anger on full display, he’s still so impressively beautiful. His hair points every which way, like he’s been running his fingers through the top for the last five hours. His eyes are tired. Dull and deflated, and I can’t help but feel responsible.

“Sasha?” He looks back at his bedroom then back at me. “We just got off the phone.”

“I was already outside,” I try to explain. “I told you, I wanted to see you.”

Closing his eyes, he looks down, his chin to his chest and shakes his head excessively. “This is not a good idea.”

“I know that, but I’m here now.” I step closer to him, and he steps back. The rejection stings, but it seems wrong to turn back now. “Can I come in?”

He presses his back against the door and gestures for me to walk through. Grinding his teeth, I know he’s anything but pleased.

I stand in the middle of his living room, battling the unwanted feeling, forcing myself to get through the discomfort. “Drix. I know I’m not welcome he—”

“Don’t lay the guilt on from the get-go.” He slams the door closed, effectively interrupting me. “For as long as Dakota has spent time here, you’ve always been welcome. But she’s not here, which doesn’t make you unwelcome, it just means I can’t work out why you’re here.” He folds his arms across his chest, and glares at me, his eyes hard and cold. “Do me a favour once and put me out of my goddamn misery, and tell me why you’re here.”

My chin begins to tremble, his resentment hurting more and more as each second goes by. I open my mouth, only to close it, fear getting the better of me.

“Tell me,” he urges.

“I’m so fucking lost, Drix.” The tears fall without warning, the confession a painful reminder of how conditional I’ve allowed my own happiness to become. “I’m miserable like this.”

A weak laugh leaves his mouth, as he hangs his head, and covers his eyes with his hands. He looks back up, his pained and confused expression mirroring mine. “And whose fault is that?” he asks. “Because it ain’t mine.”

“Don’t fall in love with her.”

His eyes widen, the words surprising us both. “What are you saying, Sasha?”

The tears fall harder. “Just promise me you won’t fall in love with her.” Habit has us walking toward one another, the small gap between us a stark contradiction to the reality of our situation.

“You’re talking about a woman I barely even know.”

“But I know. I saw the way she looked at you. The way she could look at you.” I wrap my arms around his torso and rest my cheek on his chest. He stiffens underneath my touch, warring with himself whether to hug me back or not. “She’ll love you right. She’ll love you better. She’ll give you a life that I can’t.”

He kisses the top of my head. “I don’t have any more pieces left of my heart you can fucking break.” Coupled with his heartbreaking revelation he holds me tighter and gentler than I deserve, igniting a rush of tears that become uncontrollable to contain.

“I’m sorry, Drix,” I hiccup through sobs. “I’m so sorry. I just need a little bit more time.”

“You’re telling me fifteen years wasn’t enough?”

“I can’t explain it.”

“Well until you can.” He moves back, and lowers his head, quickly pressing his mouth to mine. He moves painfully fast, and I’m unable to get my fill of him. “I can’t hear how you don’t want me anymore.”

Holding his face in my hands, I hold him tight enough, so all he can see is me. “I want you. I want you more than I can put into words.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Kiss me. Kiss me so I can show you just how much I want you.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head, and the switch in me flips. No longer able to bear his disappointment in me, I throw myself at him. I let my lips do the talking, and his can’t help but speak right back. It’s an old and tired conversation, one we’ve had many times. Promises we’ve made a hundred times, promises we’ve broken a thousand more.

The rest of my body buzzes back to life with every swipe of his tongue. We melt into one another and the walls between us break down. He takes hold of my arse, lifting me up and guiding us to the couch.

We sit, me straddling him with my hands still holding his face, desperate not to lose him to reality. His dick offers a warm welcome as my hips instinctively rock against his hard cock. I'm on the very edge of giving in, wanting to fall into him, and fall apart for him.

He's gripping my hips so tight, moving me back and forth, when all of a sudden, he stops.

“Drix?” I call for him and try to bring him back, my voice breathless, shaky and full of fear.

Resting his forehead on mine, he doesn't say a word, and it's the beginning of our connection severing slowly. I feel the loss of every sense, more hurtful than the one before.

“Sash,” he whispers into the empty room. “You need to go.”

I hear him, but neither of us moves.

“When I can’t hear you and see you and have the chance to taste you, I can’t want you.” His eyes break my heart before his words do. Conviction. Determination. Resolve. “And I can’t want you anymore.”

Two streets away from his house, and I pull the car over and park on the side of the road. I don’t know if my body is breaking down or trying to fight back, but I can barely breathe. My head is heavy, my lungs feel like they’re collapsing, and my throat is closing up on me through every uncontrollable sob.

I’ve done this, cry tears over Hendrix Michaels more times than I can count, but this, right now, constricted by the four doors of this car, it feels final. Like for the first time in my whole entire life I won’t be able to dust off my knees and pick myself up off the floor.

The worst part is these tears are my own fault. When I can’t seem but to be anything but reckless with his heart, how can I hate him for protecting it? For doing what’s right, even when it hurts. It’s what he’s always done. Be the bigger person. Be the better person.

He ignores my flaws for the most part, and all I do is let them be the reason why I will never give us another chance. It’s a self-imposed punishment because I don’t deserve him. I didn’t when every boy gave him shit in high school for how much he loved me. I didn’t when I accused him of not loving me enough. I didn’t when I gave my virginity to somebody else, and I hammered the last nail in the coffin when I fell pregnant with his brother’s baby.

I’m fucked up in the most clichéd of ways, and I broke Hendrix and I enough times just to watch him pick up all the pieces whenever I needed him to.

He’s done more for me than I’ll ever do for him, and it took a woman with hair like mine, a body like mine, and an appreciation for how fucking beautiful Hendrix is, just like me, to finally accept that I’m losing him.

I lean my head on the headrest and wait for the remaining tears to leave my body. I need to get home. I need to drink a whole bottle of tequila and sort out my fucking life. Before I know it, my daughter is going to leave me, and our home, looking for her own happily ever after, and every excuse I’ve ever had to avoid living my own life won’t be valid anymore.

Starting the car, I pull out and head home. Faster than is legal, I do the twenty-five-minute drive in fifteen. I fly through the door and remove every piece of clothing off my body as I make my way to the kitchen. By the time I’m sculling my second tumbler of tequila and grapefruit juice on ice, I’m standing in nothing but my bra and underwear, begging for the numbness to hurry up and takeover.

Pouring the third glass, I take myself and my liquid dinner to my bedroom. I set everything on my bedside table and walk into the back of my walk-in wardrobe and pull out a box I’ve kept hidden for a very long time. I take another large gulp of my drink before I open Pandora’s box.

I scatter the letters written in multi-coloured pen and covered back to front in adolescent handwriting, all over my bed. I find my most prized possession and bring it to my nose.

The paper is thick and green, folded ‘til it can’t be folded anymore. Sprayed in Hendrix’s sixteen-year-old cologne, it smells exactly the same way it always has. I open it and a small thin gold band falls out. I slide it down my left ring finger, but thirty-year-old me has bigger fingers, and it stops just before my knuckle.

Tracing the letters of each word, I read the note that became the beginning of the end.

“How can you be so sure?” I ask him, my face hurting from how wide my smile is right now.

We’re laying in the sandpit at the park, staring at the stars. A place that has become our safe haven ever since the night Hendrix made me come back here.

“I just know. I’ve always known.” My head rests on his inner arm while his fingers play with the strands of my hair. I hold the letter he used to propose and sniff it excessively, loving the scent of Hendrix all around me.

“And you don’t think we’re too young?”

“I think we’re too young to do it right now, but not too young to know it’s right. and by the smile on your face, I think you agree.” He pulls his free hand out of his pocket and a ridiculously girly squeal leaves my mouth as he places the petite, delicate gold band on my ring finger.

“You got a ring?”

“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s real, and I saved hard for it.”

He’s so proud, it makes my heart want to burst. I rise out of his hold and turn to face him. “You don’t need to buy me gifts, Drix.”

“I know, but I want to, and if I can, I will.”

My hands on his chest, I lean down and kiss him quickly. “Drix.”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t wait to marry you.”

“I can’t wait to marry you either.”

The kiss starts off slow, as usual, but this time, the love passing between us feels as if it could set the world on fire. I’ve never felt so much for one person. When he touches me, I don’t want to stop, and when he kisses me I pray it never ends. And now the flutters at the pit of my stomach, make it impossible to put the brakes on it because I know where I want to go next.

But I’m scared.

I love Hendrix. So much, I want to make him happy in every single way. It’s what boys want and I want to go to the next level with him, but I feel if we go all the way, we’ll have nothing else to look forward to for the rest of our lives.

I want to keep things moving and keep things interesting, but I don’t want to rush.

We have forever, right? What’s the rush?

“I can hear you thinking, babe. Stop.”

“I’m not,” I lie.

“You are? And I’m happy to wait.”

I hide my face in his chest. “How did you know?”

“One day you’ll realise that there’s nothing about you I don’t know. We will get there, and it will happen exactly when it’s meant to.” He shifts slightly so my chin is resting on his chest and he can hold my stare. “Do you trust me?”

“Always.”

Six Weeks Later

The loud shrill of the bell echoes throughout the school, and the end of the year is finally here. Hendrix and I have been waiting for the school holidays for what feels like forever. To be able to see each other every day and not be bogged down with all the school work we’ve had creeping up on us lately.

Hendrix and I made a deal, we wouldn’t let our relationship interfere with school, so we wouldn’t jeopardise our future. Drix wants out of here, away from his mum and away from his past. Me? I said I would follow him wherever.

My relationship with my mother was as good as any teenager’s could be. I told her what she needed to know, and she reminded me not to grow up too fast. I was an only child with a dad I didn’t know or care to find.

That was the one thing Drix and I had in common, deadbeat dads. Their lives were too important to include us, or their dislike for our mothers was too much of a hurdle to ignore. Whatever their excuses were, they soon didn’t matter. We just want our future to be fresh, bright, and everything two hardworking kids deserved.

“So, you and Drix going to have sex this summer?” Bethany asks as we pack up our books.

“What is your obsession with me and Drix?”

“You bagged the hottest guy in school and you’re such a prude about it all. You’re never together, too busy studying.” She sits on the edge of my desk, hands behind her, chest protruding out, trying every which way to make sure everybody knows how attractive she is. “And if you’re not careful, he’s going to leave you for another girl. A girl who would be glad to have sex with him.”

Bethany was supposed to be my best female friend, but since Hendrix and I got together, her jealousy has spiked my insecurities to an irrational and uncontrollable level.

It’s Bethany who should be my punching bag, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing the shit she spews actually bothers me. I keep it all locked up and pour my heart out in my diary before I go to bed. I write about how scared I am he’ll realise how mediocre I am compared to all the girls who are desperate for his attention. How I feel forced to sleep with him to keep him, and the one thought that scares me the most, fucking this up and losing the most important person in my whole world.

I should talk to him about the way I feel because I know he’ll ease my fears, but instead, I listen to Bethany and pick a fight with Hendrix. He doesn’t know why and he begs me to explain it to him, but I don’t. I brush it off, push it deep, and force it away. Until the next time.

“Hey, Sash, what’s with the face?” Jagger comes up behind me, sliding my backpack strap off my shoulder and carrying it for me.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Besides the fact that I’ve been doing it forever, you’re my brother’s girl, I got to take care of you when he’s not around.”

I pinch his cheeks like he’s a little baby, our sibling type relationship strong. “Thank you. What would I do without you?”

“So,” He flicks my fingers from his face. “You can’t hide from me, you going to tell me what’s up or not?”

“Just girl shit. You know how we are. One day we’re friends and the next you’re wondering why.”

“Sometimes I wish I was a girl so I could know what it’s like to have tits for a day.”

“That’s so helpful Jagger, what would I do without your input.”

“Be less entertained that’s for sure.” He pulls an LCM Bar out of his pocket, unwraps it and stuffs it in his mouth. No bites, all in one go. “You ready to go home?” he asks with a full mouth. “Drix is waiting and he’ll be blowing up if I’m not delivering you to him in record time.”

“I’m not a package.”

“Whatever, I just do what he asks because I am a great brother.”

“Shut up, and let’s go.” He salutes, and I nudge him in the shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I know.”

We walk through the corridor, heading toward Block B, where Drix had his last science class for the year. I could pick him out from any crowded place, and this time it’s no different. Unfortunately, it’s not just him that I see, and my body physically freezes, but internally my blood is boiling.

“Sash.” Jagger looks back at me, standing there, far enough behind him that the gap between us is obvious and awkward. “Are you coming?”

I stand there numb, unable to talk. Bethany has her hands all over Drix, and I can see him trying to dodge her, but in my mind, it makes no difference. All I can hear on repeat is her telling me he’s going to leave me for someone else. Someone that will have sex with him whenever he wants it. Someone. Just. Like. Her.

“I have to go.”

“What? Why? What’s the matter?”

“Jagger, I have to go. Don’t follow me, and don’t tell him I saw him.”

“Sasha. It. Is. Nothing.”

I run off, ignoring him calling after me. My heart is crushing even though my mind knows better and is screaming at me to calm the fuck down. I don’t. I run as fast as I can and begin to plan how I’m going to break up with Hendrix.

I’m never going to be the girl he needs, and the quicker he finds out, the better.

“Knock knock.” Hendrix leans on the open doorway of the treehouse. His shoulder pressed up on the worn wood, his arms crossed like they’re protecting his chest. His heart. “You going to let me in.”

“It’s a public place.”

“I don’t want to impose on your personal space. Especially since you ran away, to get more space.” In less than two strides he’s standing beside my sitting form, making me feel even smaller than I already do. “What’s up?”

“We need to break up.”

“What the fuck?”

“I saw you with Bethany today.”

He lets his body clumsily slump down until he’s next to me, our shoulders touching. “And?”

His voice is harsh and hurt, but I stick to the plan. “She’s better for you than me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She would have sex with you tomorrow if you want it.”

“Why are we talking about this again?” He buries his head in his hands and growls, “I’ve fucking told you I don’t care.”

“All guys care.”

“I don’t. I don’t. I don’t,” he shouts. “We just admitted our feelings. We’ve been happy. I’ve been happy. We have the whole summer ahead of us. Fuck. I told you I want to marry you.”

“I know. I know,” I cry. “But that is so far away from now. Who knows what will happen between now and then, and who we’ll meet, and who we’ll want.”

Bending his knees, he rests his arms across the top and tilts his head to the side, to look at me. A sheen of tears cover his eyes, and I realise I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he whispers. “But I fucking love you, Sasha. I’m going to give you whatever stupid space you need to get over this ridiculous bullshit that’s going through your head.” He gets up and walks away from me, each step another crack in both our hearts. “But in two days, you better be on my doorstep, because I have the best life planned for us, and I can’t do any of that without you.”